HOW TO – Back Up and Restore the AppleTV Hard Disk

Technology
HOW TO – Back Up and Restore the AppleTV Hard Disk

appletvopened_20070331.jpg
Before you start playing with the software on the AppleTV, it’s prodent to make a bit-level copy of the internal disk. That way, if something goes wrong during your experimentation, you can restore the disk to its original state.

To do this, you’ll be removing the AppleTV’s disk, putting it in another machine (Linux or OS X), and copying the contents to a file on another hard drive. Note that you’ll need a minimum of about 40gig on the other drive to store the disk image. You’ll also need a 2.5inch external drive enclosure, or a 2.5inch to 3.5inch IDE adapter for attaching the drive to your other machine. Finally, there’s a good chance that opening the case will void your warrantee… but it’s for a good cause right?

Back up:

  • First, remove the hard disk from your AppleTV. Check out Makezine’s instructions to dissect your new toy –Link.
  • Connect the drive to your computer as if you were adding a second disk. On Linux, it will be available as /dev/hdb or /dev/hdc depending on whether you slaved it to the first drive or put it on the second channel (we’ll assume hdc). In OS X, use the diskutil list command to list the partition tables on your drives. The AppleTV disk will have HFS partitions named Media and OSBoot. We’ll assume /dev/disk2 for this article.
  • Copy the disk’s entire contents to your hard drive. In Linux, run:

    dd if=/dev/hdc of=/home/[username]/appletvdump.img bs=1024k

    For OS X users, it’s the same thing, just a different device:

    dd if=/dev/disk2 of=/Users/[username]/appletvdump.img bs=1024k

This should take a while, and you’ll see/hear both hard drives being accessed. When it’s finished, you should have a 40gig (approximately) file on your other computer. On a new AppleTV disk, a lot of this is unused, zeroed out space, so you can gzip it to save some space on your backup machine.

How To Restore:
To restore, we just go through the same process as above, but instead of writing the disk’s contents to a file, we write the backup file’s contents back to the disk:

In Linux:
dd if=/home/[username]/appletvdump.img of=/dev/hdc bs=1024k
In OS X:
dd if=/Users/[username]/appletvdump.img of=/dev/disk2 bs=1024k

That’s all there is to it. With your backup in place, you’re now free to monkey around and try some of the other tricks we’re posting on this AppleTV weekend (or concoct a hack or two of your own)!

4 thoughts on “HOW TO – Back Up and Restore the AppleTV Hard Disk

  1. codebowl says:

    what do you do in the case where you fail to backup your original drive?

    I have messed up the partition tables however i have the original images which i have come across. I have tried to put these images back onto the TV however it will not boot up properly.

  2. JohnnyBoyClub says:

    After you remove the AppleTV HD and backup it on computer it could be save to also save that backup online on a software servers , so it will be secured and safe.
    You can use a software called http://www.dmailer.com/dmailer-backup.html to do all of that , their software is free to use so will be able to backup it on your computer hdd without any problems, and also if you want to store it online they only offer free service only up to 3gb .
    But they have good prices and i think that the security of your backup is the most important.

Comments are closed.

Discuss this article with the rest of the community on our Discord server!
Tagged

ADVERTISEMENT

Maker Faire Bay Area 2023 - Mare Island, CA

Escape to an island of imagination + innovation as Maker Faire Bay Area returns for its 15th iteration!

Buy Tickets today! SAVE 15% and lock-in your preferred date(s).

FEEDBACK